The Slice: Three-day weekend is right around the corner

If you are planning vacations and time off, you might want to note that Independence Day is on a Friday this year.

Let’s move on.

Just wondering: What happens when a marriage starts with a wedding on the 13th of some month? Is that unlucky?

(I am asking now so I can run answers on the 13th.)

Slice answer: Dale Helbig, of Silverton, Idaho – the patriarch of his extended family – said he has several relatives who doubt the veracity of 95 percent of cherished family stories. “But only if I’m the one telling them.”

You can’t judge a gift by the toothbrush box: Gayle Ray’s sister-in-law was less than thrilled with the battery-powered toothbrush Ray sent her for Christmas. And in a phone call, she did not disguise that fact. Was the gift a not-too-subtle hint, she wondered.

Things got less frosty, though, after Ray explained that the actual present had nothing to do with the toothbrush box used to protect it.

You see, the sister-in-law had removed the wrapping but had not opened the box. Once she did, she discovered a music box and some nice stationery. Laughter ensued.

Slice answers (bedtime stories for adults): “At age 71, I am read a bedtime poem every night by my wife, Ann Glynn,” wrote Donald Schaefer. “This started about eight years ago after purchasing a book of poetry from the City Lights bookstore in San Francisco.”

Another reader, a longtime Slice correspondent whose initials are GT, said she and her husband used to read to each other from the X-rated antics described in a once popular magazine feature, Penthouse Forum.

She noted that, in addition to prompting laughter, this tended to, ah, darn, we’re out of space.

Today’s Slice question: How often do you encounter someone in Spokane who says “Want me to make a call?”

(The clear implication being that the person saying that is a connected individual of such importance that surgeons, judges and others would gladly do him or her a favor, no questions asked.)